


Scarlet Skies Burning

by writerdragonfly



Category: Final Fantasy VIII, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, FF8 Cast still Exists, Gen, M/M, SGA Characters in the world of FF8
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-01 12:45:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18334703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerdragonfly/pseuds/writerdragonfly
Summary: A chance invite to a secretive country and the opportunity to learn from the brightest minds in the world sets Rodney McKay on a perilous trek to Esthar. Unfortunately, the new Sorceress War is just taking off, and he won’t be able to make it there alone.John Sheppard just wants to protect his own from the dark pull that leads all known sorceresses astray. He’ll get Teyla to Esthar or die trying.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted the first few parts of this during November 2016 Rough Trade.

Gaia Rising was, in the beginning, nothing more than a think-tank, a collection of budding scientists who--for varying reasons of their own--refused to work for any specific government. 

 

Rodney had been with them since just a scant few months after the end of the Galbadian project at the Deep Sea Research Center. 

 

Something about Gaia Rising had appealed to him from the start, but his commitment to furthering the scientific side of the Galbadian Military complex had kept him away from the project when it had first began. 

 

Of course, even back then he had his reservations about where his research was going. He had known even before he started working for the military that what would eventually come of his work would be something that might kill people. It hadn't ever been his aim--he knew too many people who had been orphaned in the Sorceress War and the skirmishes since, including himself and his sister. But it was inevitable, given the content of the work itself. 

 

Before the catastrophe of the Deep Sea Research Center project and all that came of it, it was easy to forget. 

 

But then he left the project just before its terrible conclusion, breaking both his own contract with Galbadia and his research partner's. Kavanagh hadn't been happy to have the choice taken from him, but Rodney knew that the man would get over it eventually. He hadn't been there when it all came to head, on leave back in Timber with Simpson. 

 

Sometimes, inexplicably, Rodney thought that made Kavanagh the lucky one. 

 

It was only a few years later that Gaia Rising changed. Oh, it wasn't that the ideal changed. The scientists all knew that their work was still going to the betterment of everyone and not the comfort of one single country. But the immediate aim, somewhat, did change.  Carter had brought in someone from Galbadia, who spoke to them about where their former contributions were being put to use. About the corruption that ran through the government. 

 

Gaia Rising changed, for the good of the planet.

 

Somehow the rumor of them being environmental terrorists became somewhat true. Oh, they never did anything deliberately to terrorize anyone. They tried to make whatever products they released as safe as houses. 

 

But underneath that they were fighting a righteous battle. 

 

Galbadia was sick underneath. They'd all known that in some form or other--that's why they hadn't stayed where they'd come from. Even the Garden was being infected by the slow crawl of corruption, which is why Carter had left it in the first place. 

 

The Galbadia Garden, full of school teachers and children and students and militia, was secretly acting with President Deling against the country's enemies despite the charter that stated they were beyond borders. 

 

Slowly, the government and the Garden were becoming enemies of Gaia Rising, and given his sister's position in the Garden, it made something in him ill.

 

He couldn't protect SeeD Instructor Miller from within Gaia Rising. But choosing his sister would likely mean that the people he had become closest to in her absence would be at risk far surpassing her own. 

 

So he stayed. He stayed with Gaia Rising, second in command under Carter. He tried, did what he could to warn his sister away from the place where she had escaped as a teenager, the place that had raised her after he had. But he couldn't do enough, not without putting all the important people around him at risk. And he couldn't explain enough to get Jeannie out of there, succeeding only in pushing her and her husband away. 

 

The announcement plastered over the country--over the world, if rumor was to be believed--stated that President Deling was in league with a Sorceress. That what they feared was true, that darkness was coming to reign over the land as terrifying and as terrible as before. 

 

Rodney received one missive from his sister after that, two lines via the orphanage they'd been given to after their parents died. 

 

[You were right, but I have to stay for the children. All my love, J.]

 

Rodney doesn't understand what could possibly lead her to stay for the children who aren't hers, who are nothing more than students learning to be mercenaries for hire. 

 

But he does understand that sometimes people are forced to make choices that aren't understood by others. 

 

Within a few weeks, everything changes again. 

 

Jeannie's decision to stay with the Garden despite the threat of the Sorceress ends up bringing her headfirst into more danger than Rodney was in within Gaia Rising. 

 

Sorceress Edea assassinates President Deling during her own commencement speech, taking over control of Galbadia with a sharp smile and wicked horns. 

 

The attempted assassination by what rumor calls rogue SeeD graduates, and Sorceress Edea's subsequent move to the Garden academy his sister lives and teaches in is nothing more than Rodney's worst nightmare. 

 

But he can't  _ do _ anything about it. Because he's made his bed and so has Jeannie and there's no easy way to resolve any of it without one or both of them dying, and a body count that Rodney doesn't know if he can handle. 

 

Gaia Rising rebrands itself when news of the SeeDs' imprisonment comes to them. Carter's smile comes less often, sharp lines of worry taking over her face instead. 

 

Things do not get better, no matter how much they try to work the science to protect as many people as they can. 

 

Rodney doesn't pay attention to the military maneuvers that Carter works on with her contacts, focuses on the melding of spellwork alongside engineering to build better protection for the people who will undoubtedly be stuck in the middle. 

 

He tries not to think about Jeannie, about the way he used to be her everything. Her Knight and protector and, if he was honest with himself, her parent. 

 

He's stuck on the opposite side, even if the Sorceress' plan isn't anything to do with the rebel factions who seek to depose her.

 

Rodney thinks she's bringing Galbadia on an all out offensive against the other Garden academies of all things--something that's proven right with the larger of them is devastated by a Galbadia missile strike--missiles containing a positioning system that Rodney had devised. 

 

But the thing is, Trabia Garden sat at the heart of Trabia City and it wasn't just the thousands of children who lived within its walls that were murdered. Last he had heard, the population of Trabia City was nearly a quarter of a million. 

 

And yet, only hundreds survived.

 

Most of them were children. 

 

Something he built had killed them, and though he had long since left the project, he feels somewhat to blame for it. 

  
  


-x-

 

Rodney slumps bodily into his empty chair, the wood creaking under the sudden heavy weight upon it. It's early--just after sunrise--but the table is already full of his scientific colleagues. 

 

He's exhausted, three hours into his third day awake, but he's got a date with his bed after the morning meeting and nothing important to stop him from it. 

 

Except, something about the way Carter is standing at her end of the table tells him that he might be wrong about that. 

 

"Good morning!" Carter says in an overly cheery tone, as if she hadn't been with him and Radek in the labs until just a couple hours ago. 

 

Most of them reply in varying shades of half-asleep, but Simpson's response is nearly as awake and cheery as Carter's. 

 

A part of him wants to throw his breakfast roll at her, except he'd rather eat it, even if it is at least a day old. 

 

"Last night, a delegation from Esthar approached my contact in the Galbadian Army," Carter says once the room quiets again, and she doesn't seem to expect the sudden fervor of noise at her words. 

 

Like the rest of them, Rodney had never been to Esthar. He wasn't even sure Esthar  _ existed _ anymore, not since the last Sorceress War. They'd been so sure of themselves and their power, and Sorceress Adel had killed so many while she was in control of the government. 

 

But nothing since Adel disappeared, nothing at all. Not a word or a whisper or a sighting in almost twenty years. 

 

"It's probably the Sorceress, trying to spring a trap--" Kavanagh says, his voice loud over the rest of them. And as much as Rodney hates it, he thinks he agrees. It sounds... it sounds too good to be true. 

 

Everything his parents had told him before they died, everything he'd learned in books and through reverse-engineering, all of it told him one thing. 

 

Esthar had always been decades ahead of the rest of them. Fisherman's Horizon had solar power for Hyne's sake, and the engineers had  _ left _ Esthar before the war!

 

Esthar was made of scientists' dreams. They probably had a work around to the signal issues that made long distance contact erratic at best and impossible at worst before Galbadia even knew there was a problem. 

 

They were a fairy tale. But Hyne, did Rodney wish they were real. 

 

"Ambassador Weir brought proof. They have  _ cloaking technology _ ."

 

-x-

 

"It's a pleasure to meet you, McKay," the ambassador says with a wry smile, shaking his hand firmly, "I've heard good things about your work."

 

Rodney releases the woman's hand, and nods in acceptance of her words. 

 

"We do as best we can here," he replies as evenly as he can, "the loss of shared knowledge from Esthar put many of us back."

 

She laughs, a little startled sounding noise that almost makes him jump. 

 

"Oh, you're good, McKay. Do you blame the general lack of technological advancement on Esthar then?"

 

He snorts, unable to stop himself, "Of course not. But Esthar has been decades ahead of the rest of Gaia for generations, and the fact that you suddenly stopped sharing said advancement means that even the most intelligent of us are starting from scratch."

 

"I have heard of your work, McKay. I don't believe you've ever had to start from scratch."

 

"Yes, but not everyone is as capable as I am."

 

"There  _ is _ a reason we came here, McKay."

 

-x-

 

The invitation has all the appearance of being simple, clean lines and thick paper. Rodney doesn't think it's that easy though. 

 

It isn't that he thinks it's a trap, the invitation to Esthar. At least, not the kind devised by the Sorceress. It's too involved for that. 

 

But he knows there's something special about the cream colored paper and stark black ink. Something under the surface. 

 

But he doesn't want to tear his invitation apart to figure out why, what, who.

 

So he doesn't. Instead, he encloses it back in the matching envelope and slips it back into his inner jacket pocket. 

 

Ambassador Weir nods politely across the crowded room, as if agreeing with a decision that Rodney is only somewhat certain he's made. 

 

"We've a few weeks yet before our return," her companion says when he approaches him, "but they'll let you into the city if you've got your invitation. We won't be heading back until we've spoken to a few more people, though they've scattered about more than you have."

 

"Yes, well," Rodney starts, but the man cuts him off with a shake of his head. 

 

"That's actually a compliment. I mean, I imagine you make Galbadia nervous but what you're doing here is nothing short of spectacular."

 

"Well, thank you, then."

 

"A word of advice, though?"

 

"... yes?"

 

"Take the Horizon Bridge. You'll have to walk quite aways, but it'll be hard to hire a ship to take you. There aren't any ports easily accessible."

 

-x-

 

"Are you going to go?" Radek asks him as they walk into their labs, the door sealing shut behind them. 

 

"It's  _ Esthar _ ," Rodney says, "It's supposed to be geek paradise."

 

"It sounds dangerous."

 

"It can't be more dangerous than being part of a terrorist organization, Zelenka."

 

"Don't be stupid. We are not terrorists--"

 

"The Galbadian government labeled us terrorists even before we started plotting against them."

 

"Yes, but Galbadian government is full of idiots. Like, President Deling appointed the Sorceress before she assassinated him."

 

"And now she's running the country we're currently squatting in."

 

"We're not squatting."

 

"I'm from Balamb, though you could make the argument that I'm from Timber, which arguably almost makes me Galbadian. You, you're from  _ Trabia _ . We're not native to Galbadia, and I'm not even sure we're legally here during wartime. Considering how quickly the Sorceress took over, I’m not even sure we  _ should _ stay here.”

 

“Do you expect me to join you?” Radek asks, something suspiciously like disbelief in his voice.

 

“What?  _ No _ . I’m fully capable of going there by myself, fuck you very much.”

 

“Then where do you expect me to go, McKay? Trabia City is nothing more than rubble and graveyards now.”

 

“I know,” he says, sighing, “but I’m going to Esthar. You’ll be okay here... probably.”

 

-x-

 

"It's going to be dangerous, Rodney," Carter says to him while he's packing. Rodney doesn't look up at her. 

 

"I know," he admits, slipping another carefully wrapped elixir into the pack, "but there could be something there that could stop this before..."

 

"Before it gets worse. I know that. Just, I can't go. I'm needed here."

 

Her words startle him into a half laugh, "No shit, Sam."

 

"Oh, shut up, McKay. Be careful, though?"

 

"I'm always care--"

 

"I know. After... after all this is over, there'll still be a place for you here."

 

"No," he finds himself saying, "there won't be.”

 

-x-

 

There is always war. It's something that Rodney knows, has always known. There was the Sorceress War when he was a child, the ongoing fight between Galbadia and Timber, Galbadia and Dollet, Galbadia and anyone who made them angry. The current war with this new Sorceress.

 

There was a reason that there were  _ three _ mercenary-for-hire academies scattered across the planet.

 

There was also a reason why he refused to work for any of them.

 

Rodney had never wanted to be a soldier. He had only ever wanted to learn.

 

-x-

 

In the morning, he takes his two bags and heads to the rental kiosk on the edge of Deling City. The price of the rental car is an overly expensive cost, but Rodney has no desire to take the train or walk the distance himself. He knows, already, that it’s going to be a long walk once he leaves Timber.

 

The car he ends up with is small, but he doesn’t have anything to fill up the extra space with anyway. It also smells of smoke, and to a much lesser extent, of blood. He tries not to focus on what had happened with the last renter.

 

Instead he focuses on the road, the long stretch of it before him.

 

He has almost two days drive ahead of him. Two long days, provided nothing happens to the car or to the countryside in the meantime.

 

Somehow though, the silence of being by himself feels quieter than normal.

 

-x-

 

It’s late that first night when he stops at the Galbadia Garden Station. He changes his mind half a dozen times during the drive, but it doesn’t seem to matter when he finally goes to purchase a train ticket for the second half of his trip.

 

“I’m sorry, sir. They’re only allowing military personnel on the current trains to towards the Timber area.”

 

“I need to get through to Fishermans Horizon, would I be able--”

 

“I can’t even let you on a train to East Academy Station. I am sorry, sir.”

 

-x-

 

He sleeps in the rental car in the Galbadian Garden Station parking lot that night. It feels like a sign, a portent of what’s to come.

 

He knew it would be hard, getting to Esthar. He just hadn’t expected it to be difficult this soon.

 

In the morning, the attendant from the night before wakes him with a small plate of pastries and a light tap on his window. She’s hesitant, but her gesture is kind. He’s not used to that. He hadn’t been nice to her, not after her declination to allow him passage on the train. 

 

But it reminds Rodney that not everyone wanted the war that kept erupting. That not everyone wanted to put the commands of the military first, before the people. 

 

“Good luck, Mister McKay,” she tells him when he returns the plate before he heads out again.

 

“Thank you, Miss Novak.”

 

He leaves for Timber shortly after.

 


	2. TWO

##  TWO

-x-X-x-

 

John’s father used to have a car. It was overly expensive, even for a personal vehicle. At first, he hadn’t driven it often, but more and more often after his mother and his brother died, his father would pack the two of them up in the lush seats and drive all the way out to Dollet, park the car in front of the pub, and let John play cards with the locals while his father sat at the bar slowly making his way through tumbler after tumbler until the owner dragged the two of them to the hotel for the night. John would always end up waking hours before his father and head back to Richard’s pub on his own, playing cards with the man as he ate breakfast in the back office across the street. It says something, probably, that those were always his fondest memories of his father after his mother died. 

 

He hears a story once, years after he’s broken all ties with his father and forged a path that even he hadn’t quite expected, that the fancy blue car that used to sit outside the  _ Shining Bomber _ is smashed to pieces by a Galbadian mechanized spider.

 

He wonders if it’s his father’s car, still sitting there outside the bar like being in a different country will make it less apparent that he’d rather drink away his sorrow than do his duty.

 

A part of him, a small part, wishes he didn’t care. 

 

John doesn’t drive cars. He knows how--the army was good about teaching that kind of thing--but when he drives, he remembers the redness of his father’s eyes on the drives back and the quiet, ramrod straight hours of driving through the Galbadian countryside, heedless of the exhausted people walking the same stretch of road.

 

John isn’t in the army anymore either.

 

-x-

 

They’ve been travelling alone since they left the ship near Winhill. His second hadn’t wanted to leave them, wanted to ferry them as far as FH if he couldn’t take them all the way to Esthar.

 

It would take longer, they all knew, if the two of them walked the longest part of the journey. But it wasn’t  _ safe _ , which was the point of their entire pilgrimage.

 

He’d left Evan in charge of the ship, pledged to make his return by the winter. The last thing any of them wanted was for that to be a lie. Evan liked to claim he wasn’t ready for the responsibility of maintaining the Pegasus while John was landside, but there wasn’t a man John trusted more with his crew. Evan had been with him from the start, when the  _ Pegasus  _ was still the  _ Apollo  _ and they had both still been active duty for Galbadia. It felt like decades ago, like they’d been serving on the ship as children instead of seasoned officers. 

 

They had done their duty for years, until they realized that what was happening to the world while they blindly followed orders. Until there was no denying that they weren’t on the side of angels, not like they had been raised to believe.

 

Perhaps it should have been more difficult, the decision to throw aside their entire lives for a group of strangers. Neither one of them had thought about what would happen as a result of the mutiny, just been unable to hold back when the captain had declared their rescued refugees as prisoners of war and all the trappings and abuses that it allotted the crew.

 

John trusted Evan with the family they’d built of crew over the years because there wasn’t a man in the world he knew better.

 

Evan had been with them from the start, had proved his worth and his heart just like the rest of them had. More, perhaps, than some. He had given up his country, for all intents and purposes, just as surely as John had. Except that all John had left in Galbadia was a father who he hadn't spoken to since he joined up at sixteen, and Evan had left behind a family and a fiancee and a life he’d intended to live.

 

John trusted Evan, and that was all that mattered.

 

Only one of them had the ability to protect her  _ and _ stop her if that’s what it took, even alone on the road if that’s where it would happen.

 

John never promised Evan to return with Teyla, because they both knew that if he needed to, he would do what Teyla would ask of him.

 

-x-

 

John had junctioned a few guardian forces over the years, mostly out of need than any true desire to. He still had a junction stone for Shiva, weak though it was, and he’d kept it mostly because she had been his mother’s companion once. 

 

The stone had been stronger back then, bright and warm in his hands. Over the years, he’d seen plenty of Shiva’s other stones but none of them had ever been as bright as his mother’s had been once.

 

He didn’t junction guardian forces anymore, though he had back when he was still in the army. He’d mostly used Siren, who he’d drawn out of a monster when he was a young recruit. She had been a warm presence and soft voice at the back of his head, and he’d liked the feeling of never being alone. He had mostly stocked defensive magic then, though he kept a handful of higher level offensive magic just in case he was deployed to battle.

 

It had been those high level spells that had saved Teyla and her people all those years ago.

 

And it was Teyla’s people--his people now too--who had taught him how to  _ share _ space with the mysterious guardians instead of tying them against their will.

 

John owed Teyla a debt, and she was cashing it in now, with a task that could end with her death.

 

They had met the Sorceress Edea before, a few times a year over the past few years actually. She had been Matron Edea then, a soft looking woman who had been unofficially in charge of the mercenary force who called themselves White SeeDs, and mostly sailed around Old Centra. She had been kind, and loved her charges fiercely.

 

Suddenly seeing her eyes twisted with hate and her face  _ blank _ had been like a slap in the face.

 

Her SeeDs looked lost instead of  _ happy _ the next time they’d met them.

 

And Teyla, Teyla had been terrified.

 

Because though her people had always revered the gift of Hyne that rarely blessed them, Teyla’s status as a Sorceress was suddenly revealed to be something to be feared. It  _ changed _ Edea, and surely would change Teyla too.

 

Teyla had come to him only a few days after news of Sorceress Edea’s blatant murder of President Deling reached them, at that point docked near the abandoned lighthouse in the Cape of Good Hope, and begged him to kill her before she too became so twisted as to nearly be unrecognizable.

 

It had taken weeks to convince Teyla that they might have a chance at binding her gift in Esthar, and neither John nor Evan had liked how desperate and afraid she looked. 

 

So John agreed to take her to Esthar, to protect others from her if that’s what it took, to stop her from becoming the twisted and dark caricature of herself that Edea had become no matter the cost. 

 

John had planned for every inevitability he could think of. He practiced the meditation to draw magic from monsters and nature and Gaia herself--even practiced with Jinto in drawing from other people--and he stocked as many varied spells as he could and he stuffed as many potions and phoenix pinions and elixirs as he could fit into his rucksack and he even upgraded his gunblade to a  [ _ Durandal _ ](http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/2/2b/Durandal-ffxiii-weapon.png/revision/latest?cb=20131222161742) and strapped an extra shotgun across his chest. He knew that it was dangerous, that just getting caught trying to sneak into Esthar could result in their execution. He had no intention of dying, had no intention of leaving Esthar without saving Teyla, but he was also aware that it might not end up that way.

 

He had left a somewhat comfortable life in the army and certainly a comfortable life as General Sheppard’s only heir to live the life of a pirate. He already knew that sometimes, even the best intentions went astray.

 

But Teyla was like what he imagined a sister to be to him, and he would go to the ends of the world for her. So he was.

 

When they had first set out after claiming the  _ Apollo  _ as their own and renaming it the  _ Pegasus _ upon arrival in Old Centra, they had all sat down together and decided what they would be doing. John hadn’t wanted to be in charge; he had always been content to hide away on the sidelines. But they had looked up to him as a rescuer, a savior. Even Evan, all the way back then, had told John that he was proud to serve under him, just  _ days _ after throwing over the command of their former captain and crew. They named him as their captain, and as the last remnants of a once more widespread people who had previously lived on one of the most dangerous islands on the planet, essentially as the leader of their entire people. Teyla refused to accept his request that she be put ahead of him since  _ she _ had been the elected chieftain for years before they had been rescued, but eventually agreed to be his second in command. It was a position she shared with Evan, who spoke for the rest of the former Apollo’s crew.

 

They had made a council, and the council decided where they would go and what they would do. They had become pirates by necessity, but chose to continue being so because it afforded them the most ability to protect other innocent people, no matter who they were or where they came from. And, though John doubted he would ever admit it, it was  _ fun _ . Sailing across the seas and oceans of Gaia without having to worry about where he would next be deployed or what they would expect him to do.

 

His current task wasn’t fun. He didn’t  _ want _ to do it, but he would. He had done far worse for less noble reasons.

 

-x-

 

They’re half a day out from Winhill, walking alongside the river that passes through Lallapalooza Canyon when Teyla stumbles on the draw point, a tiny little spring of violet magic that flows gently down a cracked rock. Teyla hesitates, her recent and sudden nervousness as it pertains to magic both obvious and sad.

 

“I’ll get it,” John tells her with a light touch on her arm, “do you need the cuffs?”

 

She relaxes then, nodding her head but seemingly unable to make herself ask for them. He drops his bag in the dirt and fishes a set of thick gold cuffs from it.

She puts her hands in front of him, palms outward, and it makes him a little sick inside to latch them around her wrists.

 

Touching cold iron, even wrapped in gold, makes his fingers tingle and ache. He doesn’t want to imagine how it feels to Teyla, to have her magic affinity tempered like that.

 

It isn’t powerful enough to bind her Sorceress powers--isn’t even enough to stop a child from innately drawing magic from a draw point--but it’s enough to calm the natural desire to pull the magic. Enough to calm the natural desire to _ use _ her stocked magic.

 

She looks vaguely sick from it, but as much as John wants to rip them off and stomp on them, it’s what she wants. What she believes she needs.

 

He turns back toward the draw point, coaxing the magic up and out and into him. It settles in his chest with a warm press, enough magic for three spells.

 

Three  _ Ultimas _ .

  
One of the most rare and powerful spells Gaia holds, and he’s carrying them inside.

 

“What is it?” Teyla asks, and John imagines the awe of it must have shown on his face.

 

He clears his throat and speaks, “Ultima.”

 

“But I have never heard of that spell being anywhere outside of the sister islands,” Teyla says in surprise, “are you sure?”

 

“I would share with you,” he says softly in response.  _ But we both know why I cannot _ goes unspoken.

 

-x-

 

The beasts and monsters in the countryside seem restless and more prone to attack than usual. John doesn’t know if it’s due to the Sorceress and her continuingly rising power or if the Sorceress’s sudden insanity is caused by the same thing that makes them steadily more feral.

 

Because of the rampant attacks, it takes nearly two days longer than usual to make their way across the canyon and Shennand Hills, even when they continue walking late into the night. John wants to get there as quickly as possible, but the longer they keep their current pace, the more afraid he is that it will be too much for Teyla. He knows she’s hiding how much the cuffs hurt, how much they chafe at her skins alone. 

 

But he doesn't know how to tell her they need to slow down without making her upset. 

 

So he doesn't. Instead, he shares his last sweet roll with her and watches over her carefully when they finally rest at night. 

 

-x-

 

Somehow, nearly twenty days pass on their trek. They're just past Timber, on the outside Mandy Beach when they stop for the night. It’s quiet and still, and seems like a portent of something far more dangerous than what they had already been through.

 

John falls asleep to the steady sound of Teyla’s breathing and the silence of the world outside.

 

-x-

 

Just past dawn, they hear the screaming. Teyla throws on her cloak and runs out of the tent without even stopping to pick up her weapon. John catches up to her quickly, his gunblade out at the ready by the time they reach the source.

 

There’s a chocobo lead caravan halfway between them and the Horizon Bridge, the yellow plumage of the once large, beautiful birds stained dark with blood. The bodies of three merchants are spread across the ground nearby, obviously dead.

 

There’s six  [ death claws ](http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Claw_\(Final_Fantasy_VIII\)) viciously attacking what remains of the people who had been within it, looking like large grey striped bears with their two sets of claws snapping and tearing.

 

John doesn’t  _ think _ , just acts, swinging his gunblade directly at the death claw going after the man hunched over a child. The weapon’s blade slices into the monster’s back, catching at the spine. 

 

Blood flies and two of the other creatures turn their hungry gazes to him instead. 

 

He closes his eyes for a two-count before he calls out the spell, aiming at the beast directly in front of him, “ _ Fira!”  _

 

Fire forms itself at the death claw’s feet, exploding upward and outward in a rush of hot flame and superheated air. The smell of burnt fur and flesh hangs heavy in the air, but it's a strong enough strike to knock the beast down. 

 

He doesn't hesitate--people are in danger, not just himself--and attacks again. 

  
  
  
  
  



	3. THREE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Clicking on the asterisk (*) within the story will open a YouTube link for a song from the FFVIII OST I feel fits with the tone of the story that follows. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYmBj8PWbM) You can also click on the previous sentence to listen early.

##  THREE

 

The cuffs chafe and tear at the skin of her wrists, but it is a bearable feeling compared to the hollowness in her chest. She doesn't like the way it makes her feel, as if she is not getting enough air in her lungs to breathe, as if her heart is disconnected from the rest of her body, as if she is separated from an integral part of herself.

 

She is afraid, she is always afraid anymore.

 

As a child, her affinity with water had felt like a special gift from Hyne. She had taken her Sorceress gift upon her mother’s death, felt it flare within her like a missing piece, like she hadn’t known she wasn’t whole until it was there.

 

As a child, the great guardian Leviathan had protected her people on her behalf, tied together by destiny as they were. As an adult, she had pledged herself to serve and to use him as surely as he would serve and use her.

 

Now she can hardly feel his presence, a muffled voice at the back of her skull whose words only come through clearly enough to decipher late at night when she is on the cusp of sleep.

 

At night she dreams of terrible things, of children playing mercenary across the stars, of a fight that surely cannot ever be won, about a woman with thick quicksilver hair swept up into horns and wide black wings and bare feet like beastly claws and tattooed skin and eyes the color of torama fur. 

 

She dreams of the Sorceress Edea and a group of small children who climb into her lap and listen to stories and promises and those same children grown attacking her in the midst of a riot of color and sound, of screaming sirens and blood on skin, of skies the color of a demon’s dress as the moon cries down a sea of ravenous beasts who ravage the land without mercy. 

 

At night, she dreams of the Sorceress as she had been in the before and how she sees her in the after and she is terrified of the tiny part of her that wonders if she is right.

 

The cuffs are as much a punishment as a protection. Prisons are built of the same.

 

-x-

 

She was born on Hyne’s Leap Day, an auspicious birth on the island at the edge of a war. She had shown signs of her gift from the start, something only solidified for her people when she accepted her mother’s gift upon her death. For her people, it was a blessing. Until the island was finally fully overrun by the monsters who they had fought against their entire lives, she had never thought it otherwise. 

 

Visitors had always called her homeland  _ The Island Closest to Hell. _ The older she becomes, the more she thinks they are right.

 

-x-

 

The Hellions, as they call themselves now, are not afraid of her as they should be, too ingrained with the idea of her as a blessing to think she could be a danger. She wishes they were afraid, wishes they understood what scares her so. But they don't. 

 

None of her people seem to fear her Sorceress power as they should, not even Evan. She knows she isn't the most powerful--isn't all that powerful a Sorceress at all--but she also isn't sure it matters. She never saw Matron Edea use her gifts for anything other than skinned knees and cooling fever, and yet Sorceress Edea has brought the world to its knees. 

 

Teyla does not want to become like Edea, who was kind and gentle in the before. She does not want to live if it means that she becomes the thing that haunts the people. 

 

For all she loves Evan and her people, she doesn't want to become what she fears. She doesn’t  _ want _ them to ever experience the fear of her and for her that Edea’s children must. John is, at least in this, her ally. 

 

She knows that it isn’t right, asking him to journey with her like this, to kill her if it comes to it. But she loves Evan too much to consider asking him, and she knows no one else who could do it if the moment comes.

 

She doesn’t intend to die, doesn’t  _ want  _ to. But at night she dreams of Edea, watching her children with a soft little smile and years later, brutally attacking them without a blink.

 

-x-

 

The need to use her magic burns within her when the death claws attack the caravan. It swells up within her as surely as the adrenaline does. She cannot afford to stop and take off the cuffs, and she knows she cannot cast a well aimed spell with them on. She yearns to do it, to protect these people who do not deserve such wretched deaths, but there isn’t time.

 

She picks up a dead man’s gun instead. It’s difficult to maneuver with her hands so close together, but she manages it anyway. She shoots, the scent of gunfire and magick and blood heavy in the air. 

 

It is easy to fall back into the feeling of  _ fight fight win _ . She shoots and she ducks and rolls and runs and moves. When the gun runs out of bullets, she grips it as tightly as she can manage and uses it as a weapon of itself. The stock finally cracks apart with a strike to a death claw’s face, but she is pleased to see it takes the death claw down too.

 

By the time she pulls away from the corpse to check on the victims again, she finds that John and another man have taken down four of the monstrous beasts on their own.

 

The water spell that rips through her fingertips a beat later is more instinct than intention. The last of them leaves a bloody claw hanging straight through a man’s chest when it dies.

 

[ * ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYmBj8PWbM)

 

The man is still alive, clinging to life despite the fatal wound. John and another man pull him gently to the ground. He gasps, a weezy wet sound that makes her hair stand on end.

 

“Am I... dying?” the man asked, and looking closer, Teyla can see that he’s not a man at all. He’s a _ kid _ . Hardly eighteen, if that. His SeeD uniform is darkening red with his blood and even if she had all the magic in the world at her fingertips,  she doesn’t think she can save him.

 

“Yes,” she whispers, because there isn’t any point in lying to him now. He cannot be saved, no matter how much she wishes otherwise.

 

She takes one of his hands in both of hers, his skin cold and clammy. She squeezes, and he tries to return it but his hands stay mostly limp.

 

“What’s your name, love?” she asks him as soft as she can manage. He smiles, just a little, and tries to keep her gaze.

 

“Aid... Aiden Ford,” he says, before he starts to cough, blood spraying.

 

“I am Emmagan... Would you... would you like to sleep now, Aiden?”

 

He gasps again before he manages to answer, “yes, Ma.”

 

It takes more conscious effort than before to cast through the cuffs, almost feels like her blood is boiling of the effort.

 

The spiral of stars from the spell reflect in Aiden’s eyes before they settle on his with a soft, twinkling sound, his body and face relaxing into sleep.

 

A wave of pain rushes through her body when the spell completes, like everything is on fire.

 

“ _ Emmagan,” _ John’s voice pulls her out of it, pulls her together enough that she doesn't scream.

 

“Sh... Sheppard,” she groans out, “I cannot do anything more for him.”

 

John catches her eyes for a drawn out moment before he nods. 

 

“What? You're just going to let him die? He’s just a  _ kid _ !” One of the survivors from the caravan yells, and Teyla finds the man holding a small child. 

 

“He is already dying,” she answers as evenly as she can, “the only thing we can do is control how much pain he is in while it happens.”

 

“But--”

 

“But  _ nothing _ ,” John interrupts, and the man actually looks cowed at that.

 

“He’s just a  _ kid _ ,” the man repeats, and Teyla thinks she understands. 

 

It isn’t that they are not healing him that bothers him so. He understands they cannot.

 

It’s that the boy is dying at all.

 

“I cannot cast another spell,” Teyla says, looking back to John. Her companion nods, and moves closer to the boy.

 

“Do you know where he was from?” John asks the man with the child, who looks down as he shakes his head.

 

“He was an orphan. Graduated from Galbadia a few months ago. The caravan was his first assignment,” the man who had helped lay Aiden Ford down says, and Teyla looks him over for a long, drawn-out moment before turning back to the sleeping, dying boy.

 

“Aiden Ford, of Galbadia, may your soul return to Hyne in peace,” Teyla says solemnly. When she finishes, her fingers still wrapped around the boy’s, John casts his spell, and the shimmer of death takes Aiden away.

 

-x-

 

“I’ll take Harmony to her sisters, back in Dollet,” one of the men says as they dig the graves. He isn’t the man who had been holding the child, but Teyla isn’t sure that matters.

 

“Oh, thank Hyne,” the other man says, “I didn’t want to adopt a kid yet.”

 

“She isn’t yours?” John asks in surprise, because the child is still sleeping soundly against the man’s chest. 

 

The man snorts, “No. I just met her this morning.” He stops then, suddenly somber, remembering what had happened to the caravan.

 

“McKay hired us to take him through as far as Fishermans Horizon. Name’s Dex, by the way.” the other man says. Teyla commits the names to memory.

 

She doesn’t have to ask why he hadn’t hired a ship to take him to FH instead. Being out in the countryside of Galbadia said enough about the state of war.

 

“I only hired you to take me to Fishermans Horizon because you wouldn’t go all the way to Esthar.”

 

“So you’ve said--”

 

“You are going to Esthar?” Teyla asks in mild surprise, interrupting the pending argument. 

 

“Yes, I’ve been personally invited. They’re looking for scientists.” He says it as if he’s sure of himself, of his decision, but Teyla doesn’t think that’s entirely true. There’s something else there, under the surface.

 

She looks at John, who has paused with his improvised shovel at the conversation. He meets her gaze, the raise of his eyebrow an answer to a question she hasn’t asked aloud.

 

“We would be glad to accompany you,” Teyla says.

 

She continues to dig.

 

-x-

 

“Did you know them well?” Teyla asks Dex as he shovels the last bit of dirt over the makeshift grave. He shakes his head.

 

“No. I don’t usually work security, but I knew them from my travels. The birds were mine though. Raised them from chicks.”

 

“I am sorry for your loss,” Teyla tells him honestly, and the large man smiles a little at her.

 

“It is the nature of things.”

 

“Do we... do we say something now?” McKay asks, shifting the now awake child in his arms, “About Melody’s parents or?”

 

“Harmony,” Dex corrects, asking for the child with outstretched hands. McKay only hesitates a moment before handing her over. Harmony gurgles but doesn’t protest.

 

“They... seemed to love her a lot. And they were... kind... to me,” McKay says, and it’s awkward but Teyla has no doubt that they would appreciate his words all the same.

 

“May Hyne keep them well until they are reunited with Harmony,” Teyla says, and McKay smiles at her.

 

“The kid just wanted to protect people,” McKay says then, almost suddenly, “Like... like he couldn’t protect his parents. That’s why he accepted this job, I think.”

 

“Perhaps,” Dex says, but McKay isn’t looking at any of them for an answer. He’s staring at the dirt covering the bodies of the dead.

 

“He didn’t deserve this. None of them do,” McKay says then, and he sounds angry.

 

Teyla doesn’t disagree.

 

“He made his choice,” John says suddenly, “and he died and that’s sad, but he did what he wanted to do. Would you have survived if he hadn’t?”

 

McKay meets John’s face with an angry stare, and Teyla can’t help but wonder at the intensity of it.

 

“He was just a  _ kid _ ,” McKay says, and he’s truly angry now.

 

“And how old were you, McKay, when you realized that you had to do  _ something _ ?”

 

“It isn’t fair,” McKay says, but he doesn’t explain what he means. John just nods in return and says, “It isn’t.”

 

McKay deflates at that, as though John has said something important that Teyla doesn’t quite understand.

 

“May Hyne reunite him with his family, so they may finally know peace,” Dex says then, and both John and McKay look a little ashamed of having argued where they were.

 

“The other man, did you know him too?” John asks Dex, who looks away.

 

“He was an old friend,” Dex answers, “and Hyne will welcome him home.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Teyla tells him, “that you have lost three friends today.”

 

“Thanks,” Dex says, and it’s a little rough sounding.

 

“Do you and the child need anything? For the journey?”

 

“We will be fine. I will let her sisters know where they are buried, and leave a message for the Garden about Aiden.”

 

“Thank you,” Teyla says, and he nods before he walks away.

 

-x-

 

“Did you mean it? When you said you’d take me to Esthar?” McKay asks as they finish repacking their bags. 

 

“It’s a long walk,” John says. McKay nods, probably already expecting that.

 

“I’m going either way. But... company would be nice.”

 

“We are going to Esthar anyway,” Teyla says before John can argue.

 

She hadn’t wanted anyone along with them. Hadn’t wanted to risk anyone else’s life. But, she can’t help but feel like she knows him already, like he’s supposed to be walking this pilgrimage with them. 

 

And, though she would never admit it to anyone else, she liked the idea of  _ someone _ being there for John.

 

She follows behind them when the begin to head out a few minutes later, silent as the skin beneath her cuffs begin to bleed.

## 


End file.
